Pokemon: Rapid Red Version
by Right What Is Wrong
Summary: A speedrun of Pokemon Red, as seen through the eyes of bewildered bystanders.


**Author's Note** : Based off the current Any% Glitchless Speedrun Route for Pokemon: Red Version.

There may be a few exaggerations.

* * *

Professor Oak cleared his throat, looking at his neighbor's grandson. "So your name is -"

"!" the boy shrieked, somehow managing to express that without a single coherent syllable.

"And his name is -"

"Aw, come on, gramps, you're kidding me!" his grandson complained. "It's Bl-"

"?" ! asked, again managing to express the punctuation without human speech. Oak was very impressed. Clearly this was a talented boy.

"At any rate, ! and ?, you may pick one of my last three remaining Pokemon!" he declared, gesturing to the three balls on the desk. "Choose whichever you l-"

! grabbed the PokeBall containing Squirtle and sprinted for the exit.

"Aw, come on, let's at least have a battle!" ? complained, heading after him. He collapsed on the floor as Squirtle's tail smacked him in the face.

"I think he has a very promising career," Oak mused as ! exited his lab, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

His grandson could only groan. "Out of curiosity," Oak said, turning to the boy, "how _have_ you functioned for ten years with a name lacking any letters? Doesn't that give you trouble on government forms?"

? raised a single finger high in the air.

* * *

The citizens of Viridian City were bewildered to see a young boy stop in his tracks after exiting the local Mart, pick a rock off the ground, and promptly use it to knock himself out. A moment later, he jumped to his feet and walked towards the route in the west with robotically precise movements.

A short time later, he came sprinting back into the city, a bewildered rabbit tucked under one arm, and zoomed off to the forest.

* * *

"Kid, what the heck are you doing?" a Bug Catcher called to the boy hopping on one foot in a zigzag path through the grass.

"Wild animals can't touch me if I do this!" the boy shouted back. It seemed to be true, if only because the local Caterpies and Weedles were staring at him and crawling away slowly.

The Bug Catcher winced as the boy slipped on a Kakuna. A moment later, the Kakuna went sailing off into a tree. "That patch of grass didn't count!"

Shaking his head, the Bug Catcher turned away. He'd always wondered if there would be consequences to drinking too much water contaminated with Tentacool venom during pregnancy.

* * *

"ALL HAIL THE RABBIT KING!" the boy screamed as he fled the Pewter Gym, hoisting a confused-looking Nidoran high in the air. Brock scratched his head and looked at his apprentice for any hint of something he'd missed.

"Didn't he beat me with his Squirtle...?"

* * *

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" cackled the boy as his Nidoran mowed through everything in the route with Horn Attacks. As he passed through the grass, he grabbed a Pidgey by its neck-feathers and hauled the poor thing along in his wake. A girl nearby watched, open-mouthed, as he zoomed into the PokeCenter, gabbled something at the nurse, and zoomed out, trampling over a sleazy salesman in his wake.

"I guess there _is_ a problem with preteens and energy drinks..." she muttered as he ran into Mt. Moon.

* * *

Another girl within Mt. Moon stared as the boy she had just fought deliberately knocked himself out on a boulder, jumped back up, and sprinted off, chanting mystical incantations to the "Mushroom King".

"Did he inhale too much pollen from my Oddish...?" she wondered aloud as she picked up her defeated Pokemon and walked back towards the entrance.

* * *

"You stupid loser!" ? yelled, pointing one finger at the zooming terror heading toward him. "I'm going to beat you, and then my grandpa will remember my n-"

He was promptly knocked over by 140 pounds of armored purple rabbit, and groaned softly as the beast breakdanced its way through the Trainers of Nugget Bridge. As his rival flew off, holding on for dear life to a rope tied around the rampaging rabbit's waist, ? sat up and rubbed his head.

"I don't know," he muttered, checking his now-cracked Pokedex screen. "I think I should pursue an academic career."

* * *

"Hi, champ-in-making!" the Gym spokesman began, waving at the boy he had just sighted through the window. "Welcome to Vermillion Gym! Here, we -"

He stared as the boy rammed his head into the tree outside and collapsed. "Oh, he _had_ heard of our garbage-bin puzzle," the spokesman murmured, feeling somewhat disappointed. He really did have to talk to the boss. This was just ruining busine-

The Gym door slammed open, and the boy barged right into a bin, sending it flying into the one on its left. With a _click_ , the door opened, and he ran screaming into the Leader's room.

A minute later, he ran out, waving the Thunderbadge and screaming "MAKE GARBAGE GREAT AGAIN!" The Gym door swung shut behind him.

For a moment, there was dead silence, save for the groaning of Lt. Surge in the other room.

"That was an... unconventional way of solving the puzzle," the spokesman finally said, looking back at the wrecked bins. "Um... how did he do that, again?"

* * *

"So you're here to hear about my Rapidash?" the chairman of the Pokemon Fan Club breathed, pressing his hands to his chest. "Well... I must say... lovely... amazing... cuddly... I-"

The boy snatched the now-unattended Bike Voucher off his desk and jumped down a hole his Paras had just dug through the floor. "BRONIES GET OUUUUUUUUT," he screamed, his screech fading into the distance as he disappeared down the tunnel. From the sounds of it, and the volume of dirt being ejected onto the floor, he might have been attempting to go all the way to Cerulean City.

"Well," the Fan Club chairman muttered as the other members stared at the place where the boy had been. "That was very rude."

* * *

"That will be one Horn Drill TM, three Super Potions, ten Super Repels, a doll, two drinks, and eighteen shots of steroid," the clerk began, peering over the counter at the irritable and twitchy ten-year-old before him. "While this is a free-trade city, and it's perfectly legal for an underage child to buy all of this, I must wonder what you're planning to _do_ with all of this-"

"Yeahwhateverhere'syourmoneybye."

As the wad of cash hit him in the face, the clerk wondered if going to work in a city run by organized crime was really worth the paycheck.

* * *

"Your Pokemon don't look dead!" ? shouted, flipping off his rival. "Let's go, p-"

Two bolts of lightning hit him - _indoors_ \- before the 140-pound rabbit jumped on him and started dancing the can-can.

"But I _feel_ dead," he moaned as his neighbor trampled over him on the way to the stairs.

* * *

"So, let me get this straight," one Channeler said to another. "Normal attacks and fighting techniques pass right through ghosts..."

"Yes."

"But... a _landslide_ doesn't?"

Her companion shrugged as a boy ran by them, tossing a plushie at a specter that attempted to accost him. "There is much we do not understand about the supernatural world," she said mysteriously. "Science cannot explain-"

"What you're saying is, you don't get it either?"

"Well, yes..."

* * *

"Oi, you sonuva-Arcanine!" Oak's grandson called to his rival, whom he'd just watched, via security cameras, zapping around the entire building. "Come here and fight my team like a m-"

The boy jabbed two syringes into his Nidoking, whereupon the beast screamed a battle cry and proceeded to Horn Drill its way through all of ?'s team.

He stared as the boy ran off with the rabbit, syringes still stuck in its hide, and then looked at his precious, carefully-trained Pokemon and sighed. "Steroids need to be banned by Pokemon League," he grumbled, recalling them to their PokeBalls and preparing for a trek back to the PokeCenter.

* * *

"Ah, !" Giovanni said cheerfully, turning away from the terrified President of Silph Co. "So we meet again!"

He paused.

"Wait, we've never met before, have we?" he asked, scratching his head as he stared at the boy. "Who are you? Wait - are you the one who beat up all my men at Pokemon Tower? How did you get through without a Silph Scope?"

The boy shrugged, stabbed his Nidoking with a syringe (joining three others still hanging off the creature, one of which looked quite recent), and pointed it in Giovanni's direction.

"This isn't fair," Giovanni muttered five minutes later, desperately tunneling through the floors with a half-conscious Nidoqueen. "Only _I_ should get to cheat."

* * *

Koga glared at his latest challenger. "Well?" he asked as their stalemate stretched on. He made an offensive gesture towards the boy's Nidoking, which had defeated all his other Pokemon in a single hit. "What are you waiting for? Go and finish my final one."

"HURRY UP AND KILL ME."

"I... _beg_ your pardon?" he asked, looking at his Weezing. It merely groaned at him in response. No, that had definitely come from the boy. "What did you...?"

"KILL ME." The boy, looking at him with murderous irritation, stretched his arms out and waved them around. "GO BOOM-BOOM."

That was probably the oddest request he'd ever gotten from a challenger - especially since the boy still had other Pokemon, so he would still win - but Koga shrugged and obliged. It was clear he wouldn't end his team's misery any other way.

As the cloud of smoke from Weezing's explosion dissipated, he threw the Soulbadge in the direction of a boy-shaped shadow, which promptly zoomed out of the Gym, dragging an unconscious Nidoking in its wake.

No accounting for taste?

* * *

"LIIIIIIVE!" a boy screamed outside the Cinnabar Lab, stuffing candies down the throat of his unconscious giant purple rabbit.

A scientist stuck his head out. "First of all, I don't think it's actually dead," he said to the lad, "and second, will you please keep it d-"

The Nidoking staggered to its feet, and the boy ran off into the abandoned mansion. "Okay, that wor-"

There came an ominous rumbling from beneath Cinnabar, and alarms began to go off all across the island. " _Seismic activity detected!_ "

"What is he _doing_?" the scientist screamed, running back into the lab and seeing the boy's path outlined on the radar screen. "Is he attempting to dig _all the way to Celadon?"_

* * *

A boy popped out of the ground before Erika, bowed, and challenged her to battle.

A few minutes later, he was fleeing the Gym with _unusual_ haste.

"What an odd boy," Erika murmured, drifting back off to sleep - and then snapped back awake as she felt something hot. "Is that _magma_?" she shrieked, backing away from the hole from which the boy had appeared. "Where is it _coming_ from?"

* * *

As the entire population of Cinnabar Island huddled on the roof of the Gym, watching lava flow past, Blaine sighed and wondered how the day could get any worse.

A few seconds later, he was dive-bombed by a boy clinging to a Pidgey, who drop-kicked him, seized the Volcanobadge off his lab coat, and flew off into the distance.

"Naturally," he murmured, as his terrified aides grabbed him by the legs and held him back from sliding into the lava below.

* * *

"Yes, yes, I saw you coming," Sabrina said irritably to the boy biking up to her Gym, who seemed surprised to see her waiting outside. "Here's the Marshbadge. Go away."

* * *

"This time, I'm not holding back!" Giovanni proclaimed, seizing a PokeBall from his belt. "Once again, you shall face GIOVANNI, the greatest train-"

A few minutes later, he slumped to the floor as the boy ran out, Earthbadge added to his collection.

"A Nidoking," he lamented to no one in particular. "And he wasn't even cheating. He used Ground-type techniques."

A sob broke from him.

"I don't know what I'm doing with my life," the supposed master of Ground-types moaned, pressing the secret button to reveal his private mini-fridge, opening it, and removing a gallon of ice cream. As he ate it, he sobbed desperately into the bucket of Mint Chocolate Chunk. "I - I - I think I'm going to quit, and - m-maybe move to some place where no one knows me - n-never think of picking up a PokeBall again..."

* * *

"Oh, no," ? said flatly as he saw the figure that haunted his nightmares. "What a _surprise_ to see you here."

"That loosened me up," he muttered a few minutes later as his rival veered off towards Victory Road, casually breaking the sound barrier along the way. It really had. As he tried to get up from the dirt of Route 22, he wondered if he'd dislocated anything.

* * *

A bewildered turtle and crab bounced off the PC as the newest Elite Four challenger seized five Full Restores off the shelf and ran into the League Challenge.

"Welcome to Pokemon Lea-" Lorelei coughed as she got a faceful of feathers. Pulling the stunned Pidgey off her face and flinging it aside, she began again, "I am Lorel-"

A steroid-addled Nidoking promptly Drilled all of her Pokemon and ran out. "Rude," she muttered, as the boy went to face Bruno.

Her colleague reared up to his full height and pounded his fists together. "I am Bruno of the Elite-"

Three minutes later, he was knee-deep in snow and the boy was running out of his room, Blizzard-spewing Nidoking in tow. "At times like these, I regret not wearing a shirt," he muttered, hugging himself and shivering.

"Ha!" Agatha shouted, having learned from the example of her colleagues not to waste time on introductions, and pointed a bony finger at the boy. "I'll show you how a real Trainer fights-"

Later, when the nice Life Alert people came in and helped her get back up (she couldn't be blamed for falling over after four earthquakes straight), she would tell them, "You know, that young man was _very_ rude, but he could play _quite_ the tune on his PokeFlute..."

In the present, however, the young man was in an extremely foul mood as he walked up to Lance. "You know that dragons are mythical Pokemon!" the caped moron shouted, face stretched in a smug and oblivious grin. "They're virtually indestruct-"

"-or maybe not," Lance admitted a few minutes later, standing over his electrocuted and frozen Pokemon. The boy made a rude gesture at him as he passed.

Professor Oak's grandson, pushing open the doors to the Hall of Fame, felt a chill go down his spine. "You're kidding me," he said as he turned around. "I just _got_ -"

The steroid-riddled Nidoking roared and charged at him, head down and horn spinning wildly.

* * *

"I _quit_ ," Blue spat as his own grandfather led his idiot neighbor into the Hall of Fame over his battered body.

Professor Oak, oblivious to his grandson's plight, slapped the young champion on the back as he steered him onward. Oddly, now that the boy had reached the end of his Pokemon journey, he seemed able to walk at a normal speed for once. "So you won! Congratulations!" Oak proclaimed. "You're the new Pokemon League Champion! You've grown up so much since you first left with Squirtle!"

Suddenly, he halted in his steps, and stared down at the boy with rapidly-deepening bewilderment. "Forgive me," he said slowly, "but... wasn't that less than two hours ago?"


End file.
